Three the Hard Way
by Sophia Hawkins
Summary: AU Season 3. Duncan MacLeod never met Methos, or Richie Ryan, or even Amanda, and everything he thought he knew is about to change dramatically.
1. Chapter 1

Three the Hard Way

1995

Duncan MacLeod finished packing his duffel bag and looked to the other man in the room and said, sounding not quite certain himself, "This is your last chance to stay out of this. You know that, right?"

"I know," Joe Dawson nodded his head, sounding more certain about what was about to take place than the 400-year-old Immortal was, "I've known since I first decided this. We've scoured the entire Watcher chronicles, there's _never_ been a Watcher assigned to this guy, getting the tail end of his life won't be much but it'll be better than nothing." He sighed and said, "Nobody knows how old this guy even is, he's _smart_."

"He's dangerous," Duncan added, "He's eluded the Watchers either as long as he's been alive or as long as they've been in business. Either way he's got to be one of the oldest Immortals alive."

"And he's been leaving one hell of a body count in his midst," Joe replied, "Sounds like this is going to be the fight of the century."

Duncan let out a half snort at the comment, "I still think it'd be a better idea if you didn't come."

"Hey, ain't anybody gonna be looking for a 50 year old man with a cane," Joe insisted, "Way I see it, I'll be as safe as they come."

"Yeah," Duncan returned cynically, "I'm sure the other people he killed said the same thing."

"Still my call to make," Joe told him, and tapped the pocket of his jacket, "Don't worry about me."

"Yeah, yeah, I know."

"I'll meet you downstairs," Joe said as he walked over towards the lift.

"Yeah, fine, I'll be down in a minute," Duncan told him.

"MacLeod," Joe called back to the Immortal, "I know you're going to get this guy, don't worry."

Duncan snorted, might as well say 'don't breathe'.

He waited until he heard the elevator running, then opened his bag and took out an old photograph of Tessa Noel, the woman he'd loved for 12 years, and buried two years ago, the victim of a random drug-related shooting. Wrong place, wrong time, that's all it was, but she was only _in_ the wrong place at the wrong time because being involved with him made her a target to every rogue Immortal out there looking for his head as well as plenty of choice wacko mortals who had it in for him for whatever reasons. It had been a painful, and lonely, transition; Tessa had accepted long ago that children weren't a possibility due to the painful fact that Immortals couldn't have kids. Adoption hadn't really been a possibility either because all they would've been would be more targets for headhunters. As it was, he'd been alone from that time, with occasional intruders into his day-to-day life, mainly his kinsmen Connor, and Joe Dawson, his own personally assigned Watcher, who 'he wasn't supposed to know existed in the first place'. Overall though, it still made for a largely lonely existence, and not for the first time, Duncan wondered if they'd actually made the right decision in not adopting. True, losing Tessa would've been even harder on them, but if it had happened years ago, they would've been grown or largely grown by now and better able to handle it. But, he knew too well from personal experience, no sense obsessing over what was because nothing could turn the clock back to that time to change anything. All he could do now was move forward, which is exactly what he'd tried to do these last two years, that included still continuing to face challenges, and on occasion, track down Immortals who _hadn't_ challenged him, but who were too evil in their indiscriminate slaughtering of innocent people, to be allowed to live. Hence how he came to be in _this_ predicament today, he wasn't particularly looking forward to it, but he knew it had to be done.

Over the last few weeks, Seacouver had been the center of a massive crime wave that had left dozens of people dead, mutilated, beheaded, and it hadn't taken much to figure out it was all the work of one person. The police were searching for a psychotic serial killer, but Duncan knew better, it was an Immortal, one he hadn't crossed paths with before, but also one he'd been able to figure out an established pattern of how this mystery Immortal worked, and from there he figured out a very good educated guess of where he would strike next, so Duncan resolved he would meet the guy head on and end everything then and there, before anymore innocent people got killed. This manhunt was going to be taking him out of the city and he estimated he'd been gone at least three days, and that was just providing everything went according to plan; the irony being he didn't really _have_ a plan, just find the man and kill him.

* * *

Joe swung the door shut on his car and waited for MacLeod to exit the dojo so they could leave. When the first murders had made the news, the Watchers went into overdrive to find out if it was one of their subjects. Somehow, everybody actively being watched in the vicinities were all accounted for at the time of the murders and with solid alibis more or less that they were too busy fighting someone else at the time. MacLeod had been hellbent on proving that it was all the work of an Immortal. The question then, how could he track down so many Immortals in this short timeline? The answer, he didn't, he was killing mortals and decapitating them. The next question, why? Nobody in the Watchers had any idea who the guy responsible even was, so they didn't know about him, but that had to suggest he knew enough about the Watchers to make sure they _didn't_ know anything about him. Now, MacLeod finding out about the Watchers was purely bad luck, so far as the Watchers knew, no other Immortals knew about them. So the real question remained, _who_ was this guy, and _how_ did he know so much? Whatever the answers to those were, MacLeod seemed dead set on finding out, and Joe had decided there had to be _some_ merit to this theorizing, and if there was, he was going to be an eyewitness to it so the Watchers could have _some_ answers about it all. He knew very well how much they despised having any Immortal cases walking around out there they were completely in the dark about.

It was a fair weathered spring day in Seacouver, which meant the sky rotated between gray clouds and blue sky underneath, the temperature was cool but not intolerable, though the air was thick with moisture and suggested that rain might follow soon. The middle aged Watcher looked around at all the people going about their everyday life with absolutely no regard to the possibility that this killer who had been in the news for weeks could be out among them now, and that any of them might be the next victim.

One of these things is not like the other. Joe suddenly tried to remember what day it was, or rather what day of the _week_, it was early afternoon, and…still a weekday, meaning all the kids should be in school, and yet here was one who clearly was _not_. Coming his way on a pair of roller skates was a girl who looked like she might be 12 years old if she was a day, long brownish red hair pulled back into a ponytail, dirty jeans, maroon jacket, headphones over her ears connected to a Walkman on her belt, light blue backpack strapped over her shoulders, arms out at her sides like she was still learning to balance herself on the skates, though it was obvious she'd been doing it a while. He wondered…

"Whoa!"

Either the girl was oblivious with her headphones on or she was just damn careless, she about ran straight into Joe and knocked him down. When she was about six feet past him, she turned on her skates to look back at him and called a halfhearted, "Sorry," before turning front and skating to the corner and turning off behind the block.

Joe wondered, after he had a chance to recover from that near-miss, if the truant officers were still in business and there was anybody to report that kid to?

His attention was drawn to the door of the dojo as Duncan stepped out, sunglasses and overcoat on, duffel bag in hand.

"You're sure about this, Joe?"

"Like I said," the Watcher replied, "Fight of the century, only an idiot would pass it up."

Duncan was seeing he wouldn't be able to talk any sense into the younger man, so he let it go at that and put his bag in the T-bird.

From around the corner, Amanda watched as the two men got in their cars and left. And after they were gone, so was she, she turned on her skates and headed down the back street to find the others. Now she zipped straight by on her skates like a bat out of hell, along the way she nearly collided with several passersby on the street and in the confusion, relieved them of their wallets and any loose money they were carrying, without their knowing. Turning another corner two blocks down, she saw her two friends coming up the street. The oldest of them, a tall, thin boy who looked 13, with short dark hair, pale skin, and a considerably large nose for his age, dressed in a dark gray T-shirt, blue jeans, and black boots. And at his side was the youngest of them all, a short, pudgy faced little boy with red curly hair, dressed in a T-shirt a size too big, a dirty pair of blue jeans, and green sneakers.

"Methos!" Amanda skidded to a stop on her skates just short of knocking both boys down, on her skates she was slightly taller than he was, so she relished wearing them whenever possible because though younger, she liked lording over him, "Methos, come on, they're gone!"

"It's about _time_," the teen boy replied as he grabbed the younger boy's hand, knelt down and got the kid on his back, and they started for the dojo.

"How long do you think they'll be gone?" Amanda asked.

"Not long enough I'll bet," Methos replied, "But that's irrelevant."

"An elephant?" the red haired boy asked, and looked around, "Where?"

"Not elephant, Richie, _irrelevant_," Amanda told the boy on Methos' back, "I'll explain it later."

"Oh."

They came to a stop at the front doors and saw a sign stuck to one that said, 'Closed Temporarily Due to Family Emergency'.

"Family emergency my eye," Amanda said as she tried the doors.

Locked. Amanda reached into her jeans pocket and took out a set of lock picks and tried her luck.

_Click_.

"Open sesame," she smirked as she opened the doors.

"Great, let's get in before someone sees us," Methos said as he put Richie down and the three of them walked in, or rather the boys did, Amanda skated in behind them, and relocked the doors behind her.

"What a place," Richie said as he looked around at the massive interior of the building.

"Come on, over there," Methos pointed to the lift.

"Wait a minute, Methos," Amanda complained, "I need to get my skates off."

Methos pushed the door to the lift up and they got in and he pulled the door down and started the elevator for the top floor. Amanda sat down on the floor and untied her skates. She also yanked the headphones off from around her neck and unclipped her Walkman and stuffed it, and the skates, into her backpack, and took out a beat up pair of sneakers and put them on instead. She also had time enough to take out her earnings for the day and count them.

"$86.75, not bad for a day's work," she boasted.

"Then we can eat?" Richie asked eagerly.

Amanda waved the bills like a fan and said, "We can eat pizza for a week with this."

"Hurray!"

Amanda got to her feet and braced herself against the boys for the sudden stop of the elevator, then helped Methos get the door up so they could enter the loft.

"Man!" she said as they stepped off the elevator, "This place just goes _on_ and _on_! I think we could get used to this."

"Yeah, that's the problem," Methos reminded her.

Amanda looked around the room and saw a large bed at the far end of it, a living space with a couch in between, and turning around, saw the kitchen right next to the lift, and her eyes lit up like a sign in Las Vegas, and she made a beeline for it and stopped short of colliding with the refrigerator door. She grabbed the handle, threw it open, and her jaw dropped in awe and let out a whoop similar to a war cry, "Oh boy, FOOD!" and proceeded to grab as much of it up in her arms as she could carry in one haul over to the table. The first thing she picked up was a gallon of milk and started drinking it straight from the jug, gulping it down as fast as she could.

"Hey!" Methos said as he and Richie entered the kitchen.

Amanda lowered the lip of the jug from her mouth and said, "Oh, sorry," and held it out to him.

"Never mind, fruitcake," Methos replied snappily as he smacked the jug out of her hand and it fell on the floor and spilled everywhere.

"Way to go, Methos," Amanda said as she knelt down to pick the jug up.

Methos picked up a bag of oranges from the table, cut it open with a knife he was carrying, picked the largest orange he could find, and bit right into it, rind and all. Richie picked up a jar of pickles, worked the lid open, dug out a whole one, bit it in half and about choked on it.

Over the next ten minutes, the three kids ate as much of the food on the table as they were able to swallow and keep down; half the bag of oranges, a small bag of apples, a block of cheese, half the jar of pickles, a jar of green olives, a stick of butter, and the quarter gallon left of the milk.

"Oh-h-h-h," Richie groaned as he sat down, "I ate too much."

"But it sure was good," Amanda said as she looked through the refrigerator, "And there'll be plenty of food for dinner."

"What's in there?" Methos asked.

She eyed the contents on the shelves, "A huge steak, a roast, a pound of bacon, two dozen eggs…" she dug through the crisper, "A bag of carrots…"

"We'll take those and throw them out," Methos said, "What else?"

"Hmmm," Amanda knelt down for a better look at the bottom shelf, "Aha, there's some beer in here."

"_Now_ you're talking my language," Methos said with a smirk on his face and a gleam in his eyes.

"Oh look," Amanda picked up a large plastic container, "A whole tub of radishes." She peeled the lid off and scowled, "These don't _look_ like radishes, they look like fat worms." She set the container on the floor and skidded it over to the red-haired boy, "Knock yourself out, Richie."

"_I'm_ not burping him when he eats all of those," Methos told her as he went over to the fridge, "Give me a beer."

Amanda took one bottle out and gave it to Methos, then took one out for herself. Then, bottle in hand, she explored the rest of the kitchen to see what else there was to eat. On the floor was a 10-pound bag of potatoes, she methodically went from cupboard to cupboard, opening them up and peering inside, "Pepper…cloves…Tabasco sauce…garlic…crackers…cocktail onions…" she trailed off as Methos swiped those out of her hand.

"Must be gin around here somewhere then," he said.

"A bag of rice," Amanda picked up the small bag, felt its weight, then flopped it on the cupboard shelf and picked up another container, "Oatmeal."

"Take that and throw it out too," Methos told her.

"Canned vegetables…canned spinach, canned lima beans, canned peas, canned beets."

"Beets," Methos repeated as if the word was a vulgarity, "Whoever invented them should be drug out into the street and shot."

"How about just _beet_ up?" Amanda quipped.

"Ha-ha," Methos dryly remarked, "A Power Rangers joke, _very_ droll, Amanda, very droll."

"Overall," Amanda told him as she closed the cupboard door, "Should be enough food here to last us well for a couple days." They'd been on such a frantic move that they'd gone _without_ food for the last couple of days, so this was a very good find for them.

"So," she turned to Methos and asked him, "Now what do we do?"


	2. Chapter 2

The bathtub water was pitch dirty by the time Amanda finished soaking in it, and left a black ring around the edge when she got done washing her clothes in it by hand. They weren't actually _clean_, but as far as they could tell, there was no washer/dryer anywhere in the building, idiotic though that was, so they'd have to make do this way. She put her shirt, her jeans, and her jacket on three hangers and suspended them from the light fixture to drip dry.

She couldn't remember the last time she'd actually had a bath, she'd been keeping herself 'fresh' the last few days with a perfume sample she'd gotten from a department store, and with a daily washing of her face in any public restroom she was able to stop in at. Her clothes were a whole other matter, they were filthy, they were beyond filthy, she loved them because they were the only ones she had, but if she didn't have to, she'd just as soon throw them away, or burn them, rather than try and get them cleaned. For something to change into, she'd gone through MacLeod's closet and taken out a shirt that looked like it would be long on her. Pulling it on over her head, and letting it drop its full length, she looked at herself in the bathroom mirror and realized it could've fit _two_ of her. But, it would have to do for now.

"Your turn," she said as she opened the door and about knocked over Methos, who was waiting right by it.

"About time," he sneered.

"What're you complaining about?" Amanda asked as she stepped out of the bathroom, "You never bathe."

"Not true," he replied haughtily as he threw his head back and stuck his nose in the air, "I bathe every spring, whether I need it or not."

"You need it," Amanda as she inhaled.

As the bathroom door shut, Amanda heard the sound of laughter from across the loft. She strode over to the couch where Richie was watching her instead of the TV and she put her hands on her hips and told him firmly, "_You're_ next."

"But I had a bath," he told her.

"When?" she asked skeptically.

Jokingly he replied, "July 4, 1910, I was too young to fight about it then."

Amanda glared down at him and asked in a commanding tone, "What're you going to do?"

"Take a bath," he replied in a slightly intimidated squeak.

"Uh huh, that's what I thought," she said.

Amanda went over to the bedroom area and started rummaging through the drawers in MacLeod's dresser.

"Jeans, shirts, socks…underwear," she turned her nose up, "Belts, ties, doesn't anyone keep anything _interesting_ in their drawers anymore?"

"I guess not!" Richie called from the couch as he watched a show on TV.

Amanda turned up her nose as she rifled through the contents of another drawer and grumbled to herself, "Too much to ask to keep _something_ good around worth finding…a gun maybe, or some neat old photos…money…hello!"

"What is it?" Richie asked, standing up on the couch to see into the bedroom.

Amanda took a card out of the drawer. "A credit card…looks current too."

"So what?" Richie asked as he sat back down, clearly unimpressed.

"So," Amanda walked over towards the couch and told the boy, "As long as we're here, we can use this and get anything we need, more food, new clothes, anything. That way we won't have to use any of our own money and we'll still be well off: behold, the temple of no questions asked."

"I think that's called fraud, Amanda," Richie said.

"No, Richie, that's called Cover Your Assets," Amanda told him, "It's _brilliant_, besides, it's his own fault for leaving it behind. In any case we'll certainly be long gone before he ever gets the bill, there'll be absolutely no way anybody could tie the charges back to us."

Richie just shrugged and turned his attention back to the TV. Amanda tried to decide where to put the American Express card, realizing she didn't currently have any pockets on her, and her only pockets were drip-drying in the bathroom at the moment. So, she went over to her backpack, and zipped it up with her skates.

Twenty minutes later, Methos also emerged from the bathroom, _also_ changed into one of MacLeod's oversized shirts that hung off of him like an antiquated nightgown.

"Well, whatever he is, his choice of clothing is _deplorable_," he told Amanda.

Amanda tugged on her own shirt as if to prove a point and replied, "Who're you telling?"

Methos wandered over to the stereo system and sorted through the small CD collection, "His choice of music also sucks…opera…opera…opera…lot of opera here..." he tossed one CD like a Frisbee and let it hit the wall, "Gotta do something about this music, there's no Springsteen, no Queen."

"Yeah well I think I found something that'll make up for that," Amanda told Methos, "In his drawer he had a…"

Methos pointed to the boy on the couch and told her, "And _who_ gets stuck cleaning _him_ up?"

"You do," they both said at the same time.

"We'll _both_ go," Amanda told him, "I need to get my clothes out of there anyway."

"What for?" Methos asked her, "They're still wet."

He turned his attention back to the couch and did a double take, Richie was gone.

"Gee, I wonder _where_ he went?" Methos cynically asked as he walked over to the couch, and gave the side of it a firm kick, sending Richie scurrying out from underneath it, "Oh look! A red headed dust bunny, what're the odds?"

"I don't _want_ a bath," Richie protested.

"I know," Methos remarked, grabbing the kid around the chest and lifting him off his feet, "And don't think I'm looking forward to it _either_."

"Why do I have to then?" Richie wanted to know.

"Because," Methos decided to explain it on the kid's level and told him, "As soon as you stop smelling like a wet dog, you'll be a lot harder for _them_ to find."

"Really?"

Methos smirked to himself, damn kids, always so gullible, and the younger they were, the more they tended to believe everything you said. Right now though, he needed Richie to trust him, he considered it a personal, necessary evil, but it still had to be done.


	3. Chapter 3

A series of guttural moans escaped Amanda's throat as she rolled around back and forth on the sheets of MacLeod's bed. The hideous green striped things were ice cold to the touch and took their sweet time to warm up under your body temperature, but she didn't care, it was a _bed_, a _real_ bed, a _soft_ bed, the mattress felt _so_ good under her. She could sleep on this thing, like the _dead_, she was sure of it. It had been _so_ long since she'd slept in a bed, especially a comfortable one like this: the soft blankets, the large, soft pillows, the exquisitely large, soft mattress. Just like Goldilocks in the baby bear's bed, _just_ right.

"Amanda!" Methos said in an annoyed voice as he came over to her, "Will you shut up already?" He went back over to Richie, who was freshly bathed, and although largely oblivious to what was going on, Methos placed his hands over the kid's ears and said to Amanda, "Are you going to knock off those obscene noises, or am I going to have to turn the hose on you?"

"Oh, Methos," Amanda moaned, and finally sat up, "You've got to try out this bed."

"No thanks," Methos replied, "After that little episode, I'd be bound to _catch_ something off of it."

Amanda moaned again and rolled from side to side again, "I could get used to this, Methos, no more sleeping in churches on those hard pews, no more sneaking into movies through the fire exit and sleeping in the balcony for two hours at a time…this is…heavenly!"

"Yeah, well _don't_ get used to it," Methos told her, "Until we know what we're dealing with, we can't afford to get too comfortable anywhere. At any time we'll have to pick up and take off again, and we have no idea where our next destination will be, _remember_ that."

Amanda shrugged her shoulders dismissively, "Little young to be such a grumpy old man, aren't you?"

He looked at her and said simply, "I have _no_ idea."

Amanda pursed her lips together on one side and just slightly nodded her head in silent understanding. Finally, she gave in and stood up and headed over to the bathroom, "I need to get my clothes, I'm going out."

"What on earth for?" Methos asked.

Amanda stopped at the doorway and turned back around and faced them and explained, "I'm going to go out and get us some new clothes, _you're_ the one always going on about not drawing attention to ourselves…well after a while people are going to notice if you keep wearing the same clothes every day, incase you haven't noticed, this _isn't_ Scooby Doo."

"And how do you propose to do that?" Methos wanted to know.

Amanda went over to her backpack and unzipped one compartment and took out the credit card, "I found MacLeod's credit card in the dresser, we can get some new clothes and charge it."

"Charge it, _terrific_, we'll be arrested for credit card fraud," Methos said.

Richie turned his head towards Amanda and said tauntingly, "See?"

"Nobody's going to arrest us for anything," Amanda insisted, "MacLeod left it _here_, in his _home_, therefore it's not missing, the store runs the credit card," she shook her head, smiling, "It's not going to turn up stolen, by the time MacLeod gets back and sees the charges, we'll be long gone, we'll be _history_."

"_That_," Methos responded, "Is exactly what we're trying to _avoid_."

"Oh Methos will you _relax_?" Amanda asked as she sashayed back towards the bathroom to get dressed, "When is an ample opportunity like this ever going to fall in our laps again?"

"And I suppose you think you're going to be going out there _alone_," Methos said.

"Why not?" Amanda asked, "People will _look_ for the three of us together, one of us going alone makes it harder for us to find."

"Also easier to be ambushed," Methos told her, "We're safer _together_."

"Methos," Amanda came out of the bathroom scurrying on her toes so frantically she almost knocked Methos down and said to him, "There're 50,000 people in this city, so we can likely deduce there's roughly some 10,000 teen girls running around here, what's one more in the crowd going to make any difference? I'll be _fine_."

Methos folded his arms tight against his chest, pursed his lips, curled his top lip under his nose, and replied unenthusiastically, "If anything goes wrong, I'm not coming after you."

"Fine," Amanda sat down long enough to get her roller skates on, "Suit yourself, but feed the kid, will you?"

"You're crazy," Methos told her, "You know we've got a price on our heads, and you're going to go out there like a lamb walking into the slaughter. Amanda, what the _hell_ do you think we've been running so long for?"

"Well I don't know about _you_, Methos," Amanda said as she put on her jacket, "But I figured since we _were_ on the dead run for so long, _two_ days without even stopping long enough to eat anything, that we would've bought ourselves enough time that we can act like _people_ and not have to spend every minute hiding."

"That is precisely the point, we have no _idea_ who all we have to hide from," Methos told her, "We don't know how many of them there are, we can't begin to imagine where they all are."

"Methos," Amanda said simply, dismissively, "I'll be fine."

Giving in, he finally responded, "I hope so."

Amanda skated over to the lift, raised the door, got in, lowered the door, and started down. As the elevator neared the ground floor, Richie asked Methos, "Do you think that's a good idea?"

"She'll be back," Methos replied, not sounding particularly concerned.

Their attention was quickly turned back towards the elevator which had started again and was now coming up.

"You see?" Methos asked.

A minute later, Amanda surfaced again and lifted the door and said, "Alright, I'm back."

"What did I tell you?" Methos asked the boy.

Amanda slapped him on the chest and told him, "Don't get cocky, Methos, I'm _back_ because there's a police car going around the block down there and I'm not in any mood to go to jail."

"Good point," he replied.

Amanda skated over towards the couch and sat down to untie her skates.

"Well," she said, "Anybody got any other brilliant ideas?"

* * *

As the afternoon passed, the sky became darker than usual and before 5 P.M. it was already starting to rain. Amanda, Methos and Richie spent the afternoon on the couch watching TV, it was a luxury they'd really taken to over the past couple weeks when and where possible. So many channels to go through, so many things to see: MTV on one, on another an old black and white movie about gangsters, and on another a game show with people dressed up like chickens, and after that, an all day 3 Stooges marathon.

"Oh joy," Methos dryly remarked as he folded his arms against his chest and crossed one leg over the other.

"Oh come on, Methos, they're funny," Amanda said.

"To people with the IQ of a lima bean maybe," he replied.

Amanda turned and looked towards him and raised one hand and extended her index and middle fingers and aimed them in his direction warningly. Methos made a mock gesture of surrender and scooted away from her on the couch, and proceeded to watch as Amanda and Richie both laughed themselves sick over the three nitwits in black and white on the TV. After about an hour of eye pokes, face slaps, head bops, tongue pulls, pies to the face, heavy objects on feet, and other assorted physical forms of mayhem, the three of them decided to start on dinner.

"We can try cooking the steak," Amanda said as she took it out of the fridge.

"_One_ steak for the three of us?" Methos asked.

She just shrugged and replied, "It's a big one, no bones, not a lot of fat either. We can make extra potatoes instead."

"Beautiful," Methos said dryly.

"_Now_ who's the one getting used to the conveniences here?" Amanda asked smartly.

"Ha-ha."

Amanda rolled her eyes and moved over towards the window and looked out into the storm. "I wonder how long that fool MacLeod will be gone?"

"Not long enough for my comfort," Methos replied.

Amanda thought of something else and asked him, "Who do you think that old man was that went with him?"

"I doubt it makes any difference," Methos answered as he emptied the sack of potatoes into the sink to peel.

Amanda looked over to him and asked uncertainly, "You think he knows something?"

"I doubt he knows _anything_," he told her.

"We can hope," she replied. She went over to the table and looked at the steak and asked Methos, "How do you cook this thing anyway? I mean do you boil it or…will it fry in a skillet? Or does it even matter?"

"How the hell should I know?" Methos asked.

Amanda shrugged her shoulders, "Oh well, so long as it eats I guess that's all that matters. We can always try again tomorrow if we don't get it right tonight."

"Again, _don't_ get used to it," Methos said, "We might have to leave here at any time."

"I know that," Amanda replied with a pout, "Doesn't mean I can't enjoy myself while we _are_ here."

* * *

Considering the three of them together knew very little about cooking, dinner went well and the steak had been at least edible. After dinner, they returned to the living room and continued to watch TV while it poured down rain outside. Going through the channels they soon came to an old black and white horror movie.

"If this gives him nightmares," Amanda said to Methos, glancing over towards Richie, "He's sleeping with _you_ tonight."

"So what else is new?" Methos replied.

"I mean it," Amanda told him.

"Does that mean you won't be joining us in that bed?" Methos asked her, "Making those _disgusting_ noises again?"

"You two can take the bed," she said, "I'll take the couch."

"The couch, Amanda?"

"Well," she folded her arms against her chest, "It _still_ beats sleeping in a church." She turned to Methos and asked him, "I don't get it, if they want people to come to church, let alone actually pay attention in church, why the hell can't they do any better than those hard wooden pews?"

"Too uncomfortable to fall asleep in," Methos answered.

"Amen to that," Amanda snorted as she absently rubbed her backside, "All we ever got to show for it was a few splinters and a stiff and sore everything else."

"That's how they make sure they get everyone's attention," Methos said, "Or at least try to, they don't realize the attention _then_ gets divided to counting the minutes until the service is over."

Amanda looked at him and asked, "Speaking from experience, Methos?"

He thought about it for a minute and concluded, "I don't know."

It was something they had agreed not to talk about, but it still weighed heavily on their minds.

* * *

"_Who are you?"_

The two of them had never met before. Neither one of them knew anything about where they were or why, or who was keeping them there. Neither of them even knew how far back they could remember, it didn't seem that they could too far, but there were some things they knew that they didn't know _how_ they knew, it just seemed that all they _could_ remember were the white walls, four walls, every day, every day of pacing around the room in circles, staring at the walls, wondering when somebody would come. Then one day someone _had_ come, and taken each of them out of the white rooms, and then down a long, eerie corridor, to another room, one they couldn't remember being in before. And they were _left_ there, together. She stood leaning back against one of the mirrored walls, dressed in a long white nightgown, similar to the ones people wore in hospitals, much like the one he wore himself, her dark hair tied back and hanging down to her waist, absently chewing her nails and sucking on her fingertips. She looked at him like a cat sizing up a bird before pouncing on it and breaking its neck, and she'd been the first to ask, and caught him off guard.

"I…" he'd started to answer.

She stopped biting her nails and looked at him in earnest curiosity, wondering if he even knew.

"I think…" he said hesitantly, "I think my name is Methos." Then it was his turn, "Who are _you_?"

She half shrugged and replied, "I _think_ my name's Amanda. How'd they get you?"

"I don't have any idea," he answered.

"Me either," she said almost dismissively, as though it didn't mean a thing in the world.

"Were we _ever_ out of here?" he asked her.

"Got me," she said as she leaned against the mirror again and folded her arms, "I guess we must've been though, but I can't remember it."

Methos shook his head, "Me either."

"What do you think they want with us?" Amanda asked.

"I don't know," he said.

She looked around at the mirrored walls and asked, "Think they're watching us?"

"Probably," Methos answered, "Want to see what we'll do."

"I wonder what the _right_ thing is they're expecting," Amanda said.

"Beats me," Methos replied with a shrug.

"Well," Amanda said to him, "How many more of us do you think there are?"

He looked to her, "_More_ of us?"

She nodded, "Yeah, there's a little kid around here somewhere, I saw him earlier. They have him in another room."

Methos inhaled slowly and looked like he knew something about what was going on, even though he didn't and _couldn't_ possibly know, and he said to her, "I wonder what they're doing to _him_."

"I wonder what they're going to do to _us_," Amanda said to him.

Neither one of them particularly cared to give that question much thought.

Amanda folded her arms and leaned back against one wall and said to him, "If we ever find a way out of here, let's take the kid with us, whatever's going on here, it wouldn't be right to leave him behind."

Methos thought about it for a minute and nodded. He knew _he_ didn't like being here, wherever _here_ was, one damn bit, and he couldn't imagine anyone else liking it any better. He didn't remember much about the people there, but he knew that he didn't like them, _anything_ about them; he didn't like their soulless eyes that blankly stared at him like a specimen and he didn't like the cold, robotic way they addressed him, no _ordered_ him, _commanded_ him. Above all else he hated the fact that every time any of those people came to see him, it _always_ ended with them leaving the room and him being locked in again for another day, or however long it was until they came again.

"If we ever find a way out of here," he told her, "Let's burn the place down when we go."

Amanda held out her hand, "_Sounds like a plan to me_."

* * *

Amanda changed back into one of MacLeod's shirts to wear to bed, and she sauntered over to the couch and piled a couple large pillows on one end and draped a couple sheets over it she found in the closet. They'd made sure the doors were locked, the windows were locked, if _anybody_ tried getting in here tonight, they'd not only know since they'd also booby trapped the entrances, but if anybody _managed_ to get in, they'd be sorry. Amanda climbed into her makeshift bed and stretched out, bed or no bed, this was still heavenly after the places they'd _been_ sleeping. She rolled around on the cushions and moaned softly.

"Now _don't_ start that again!" an annoyed voice called over from the bed.

Amanda sat up to look over the back of the couch and saw Methos and Richie laying beside each other in the big bed at the end of the loft.

"Goodnight, Methos!" she waved comically, "Goodnight, Richie."

"Goodnight, Amanda," they called back to her, Methos gruntingly because he was tired and just wanted to go to sleep, Richie's was peppier and he still seemed to be wide awake.

"Alright, Richie," Methos yawned and stretched out on his side of the bed, "Let's go to sleep."

"Not me," Richie replied, "I'm not sleepy."

Methos scowled at the boy through one half open eye, then sat up and scowled at him with both eyes, Richie just mockingly returned the death stare.

"Now look, Richie," Methos pointed a finger at him, "We talked about this."

"Yeah, but I'm still not sleepy," he answered.

Methos inhaled slowly and told the boy, "Either you go to sleep or I'm going to rock you to sleep."

"With a real rock?" Richie inquired.

"Yes!" Methos answered.

Richie seemed to think about it for a few seconds, then promptly remarked, "Goodnight, Methos,", and laid down and started snoring immediately.

"Oh _brother_," Methos rolled his eyes and flopped back against the mattress.

Amanda smirked from where she lay on the couch since he couldn't see her. She rolled on her side and burrowed under the sheets and blankets. Shortly, the three of them were fast asleep in the first and possibly _only_ peaceful sleep they'd ever known, certainly the only one they could _remember_.


End file.
